Is there a trick for softening butter quickly?

Question

I often don't realize a baking recipe requires softened butter until after I start adding in the other wet ingredients and it's too late to wait for butter to soften the normal way (with time). So, I will usually microwave the butter until it accidentally all melts or add in the butter when it's still too hard, which impacts the overall success of the recipe. What are some tricks for softening butter quickly?

Answer 1

Use a grater

If your butter is too stiff, try using a cheese grater on it. The mechanical action will warm the butter slightly and soften it, and the huge increase in surface area will allow the room's ambient warmth to soften the butter much faster. Spread the butter shavings in a single layer to maximize surface area, and they should soften in a few minutes. You'll be unlikely to over-soften the butter with this method, so you won't run a risk of winding up with melted butter instead of softened butter.

Answer 2

Original question has been edited since this answer was posted. Microwave wasn't mentioned originally.

Microwave.

Don't mic it until it's soft! The effect keeps going.
Give it 5s at a time & try to smoosh the result every time for 30s. If you run it too long, it will go liquid in the centre first, which you don't want, so gently, gently.
5s, wait, smoosh, wait.

Better it takes 3 or 4 minutes of gradual effort to perfectly soft than 30 seconds to liquid with lumps in ;)

Suggestions to reduce power depend on how your microwave reduces its power. Very few 'inverter' models can actually reduce the strength of the microwaves transmitted. Most simply switch the full power on & off in different time intervals. This means you never quite know when it's on or off, making the whole process much more difficult to time accurately.
Full power in known small times with pauses & manual intervention is a more controllable process, less likely to over-heat.

Answer 3

pour boiling water into a glass, and let it sit until the glass is hot, or microwave water in the glass, either way, pour out the hot water. Then, place the warm, empty glass upside down over the butter and let sit until the butter is soft

Answer 4

I often don't realize a baking recipe requires softened butter until after I start adding in the other wet ingredients

There's the first tip: plan ahead. Read through the whole recipe before you start, and get all your ingredients ready before you start mixing. Many recipes work better if everything is at room temperature when you mix, so get the eggs you need out of the fridge ahead of time, measure out milk, etc.

I will usually microwave the butter until it accidentally all melts or add in the butter when it's still too hard...

You have to really pay attention when using a microwave to soften butter. Don't walk away. Don't look at your phone. And use the microwave's timer to guard against accidental overheating -- set it for just 10 or 15 seconds or so at a time, depending on how strong your oven is.

Also, learn from experience. Use short times in the microwave to work up to the degree of softness you want (keeping in mind that the center will soften first). When you succeed in getting the result you want, write down what you did so that it's easy to repeat next time.

What are some tricks for softening butter quickly?

You can soften butter just by working it a bit. Sometimes I skip the microwave and just bash a wrapped stick of butter with a rolling pin, turning it, bashing a bit more, and so on. Maybe bash is too strong a word -- I mean that I'm hitting it hard enough to leave an impression, but not so hard that I worry about breaking the wrapper. That's usually enough to get things going if, for example, I'm going to cream the butter with sugar, in which case the mixer will continue to move the butter around and mix in room-temperature sugar.

Answer 5

Try the power setting on your microwave!

Based on my experience, most people do not utilize the power setting on microwaves, or even know that it exists! I typically soften butter at the 30% setting and I have yet to liquify my butter since using this setting myself. Give it a try!

Check your microwave's manual if you're not sure how to use the power setting on your microwave.

Answer 6

Slice butter, put it between waxed paper, and pound it with a meat pounder (flat side presumably obviously) or similar. The pounding it will soften it some and being flattened out it will soften the rest of the way pretty quickly.

Answer 7

Since most of the time softened butter is getting whipped, you can whip the cold butter. It works similarly to some other answers: you will be using your mixer's energy to warm up the butter while working it.

Make sure that you cut up the butter in thin slices, because a mixer won't be able to break up a stick. It is best to also reduce the other dimensions of the slices - I find that 20x20x3mm (roughly) slices work reasonably well. Also, use a wire whisking attachment, this won't work with a soft creaming paddle. Turn the mixer on high and leave it working for longer than when creaming soft butter - maybe 5 to 10 minutes pre-creaming, then the usual creaming time.

A food processor will also work, if that's better suited to your recipe. But make sure to process the butter first until soft - so, if you are making e.g. a cracker pie crust, start with the butter only and only add the crackers after it has been softened.

The caveats:

1. You will end up with creamed butter, which will work for most purposes, even if creaming wasn't specified in the recipe, although there might be some edge cases where it is not desirable.
2. The result is usable, but not as good as properly softened butter. For example, some frostings made this way may be prone to weeping.
3. I have tried this with butter from a European fridge (so 6-8 C), people in the USA frequently keep their fridge colder (close to 0 C, which is the lower limit for food safety in American guidelines) and I don't know how the butter will act then.
4. You need a decent mixer, preferably a stand mixer. You can still try it if you have something else, but 10 minutes of continuous work (before the main mixing of the recipe starts!) may be too straining for some underpowered motors of offbrand mixers, and also trying for the baker's patience if it is a handheld mixer.

Answer 8

I microwave my butter all the time to soften it. I set the power level to 2 and put it in for 1 minute. I check it and if it needs more time, I add another 30 seconds to a minute until it's soft. If you do not have a microwave where you can adjust the power level, this method won't work.

Answer 9

Grater sounds like a cleaning nightmare but what I do is to scrape it multiple times with a butter knife. You'll get a better surface area, and thus it heats up faster. You can than either wait normally, and it will soften quite fast or accelerate further bu mild heating - such as microwave on the lowest setting - or 1 min in the oven you are preheating if it's not hot yet, only warm.

You still need to allow for time to penetrate inside the individual leaves of the butter, but it is just much faster. I'm gonna say 5 mins room temp without any additional heating.

Answer 10

Microwave -- with care and tricks

Reduce the power as far down as it will go? Except, most microwaves do this by turning on for whatever % of the time, then off ... 20% at full power for 15 seconds may be too much, even when followed by 60 seconds off. (You can tell how often the microwave switches if it's like mine, because there's a thump-type noise every time it starts heating again).

So, remove most of the power from the butter by microwaving a glass or jug of water at the same time. If there's 200g of butter containing 20g water and 180ml of water (1ml water = 1g water) , then only 10% of the microwave power goes into the butter and 90% into the water. (I'm guessing about the water content of butter because I just go by experience).

Finally, test often! A short while in the microwave, check if it's softened yet, another short while if not ....

Answer 11

Oven

When you start baking turn on the oven. Slice your butter into slices and put the slices of butter on a baking tray. Put it in the oven as it preheats. The butter will soften or melt if you leave it long enough. Pour the melted butter off the tray into the bowl. Some will remain on the tray. Use that to grease the other trays.

Answer 12

Step 1. Warm up the blade of a knife on a stove or with a hair drier. Then use it to cut the butter in small slices.

Step 2. Warm up the slices with a hair drier or put a plate with the slices on something hot, use a plate with a good thermal inertia, it will warm up slowly and you will be able to control how soft the butter will get.

Answer 13

Simple. Just warm it with your hands. It achieves both points, as you cannot accidentally overheat it (at least not more than to around 37 'C) and moreover, you have the constant tactile feedback as you are able to keep moulding the butter with your hands to tell how soft it already is. Remember to remain constantly squeezing and moulding the butter as a piece of plasticine while it is warming up, or else you will just melt the outer layer away without touching the cold inside.

Answer 14

Just microwave the butter (put something on top, it tends to go pop) until it melts.

Or put it in a hot water bath, just like you’d do with chocolate.

It’s unlikely you’ll make it too warm and liquid. Once you put it in with the other ingredients it will cool down quickly (especially if you have cool ingredients in there, like curd cheese or eggs from the fridge).